The Match
by MidnightRun42
Summary: In which Munakata attempts to find his way home.
1. The Space Between

"Time is the longest distance between two places."  
-Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie

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Please Note: This story is a follow-up to another DR3 story called 'Three Days a Week' (you can find the story on my stories page). You can read this story without reading that, but it'll make a heck of a lot more sense if you read that one first. FYI.

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Munakata Eiji had died on an otherwise unremarkable Thursday the October before Kyosuke had started high school.

He hadn't known him well, in retrospect, not really. He'd rarely been home and even more rarely spoken to him outside of the occasional well done on some academic achievement or other.

When he'd thought about it as he lay awake late that night, he'd realized that he couldn't even remember his father ever hugging him. He'd definitely clapped him on the shoulder a few times, and he seemed to distantly remember him patting his hair once or twice when he'd been very, very small, but that had been the greatest extent to which he'd ever touched him.

All things considered, his father had always been more like a pleasant stranger who came by for a visit now and again.

So it probably shouldn't have been all that surprising that his death had left him feeling at a loss for how to feel or what to do.

He knew he was supposed to be upset, to be sad, but all he'd truly felt was a strange sort of emptiness that left him ill at ease and a fair bit of guilt at not being able to be the grieving, distraught, dutiful son he was probably meant to be.

His mother had been devastated by the loss and, while her heartache had torn at him and made him feel all the worse about his own lack, his ambivalence had allowed him to handle the arrangements and filing with a clear head.

It had been... overwhelming, but he'd endured.

If there was one thing he excelled at it was taking charge of a situation.

The night prior to the funeral had been long and lonely though he'd been glad enough when his mother's sobs had finally been silenced by exhaustion as she drifted off, leaving him to maintain the vigil himself with only the sleeping, the dead and his thoughts for company.

The long, sleepless night had left him feeling strange and light-headed the next morning as if he might simply float away at any moment.

It had made the service pass in a blur of both strange and familiar faces and the meaningless trite of murmured pleasantries.

Years later, during those rare moments when he found himself dwelling on that day, all he would remember of it in detail was how uncomfortable he had been listening to people speak about this man he barely knew, the way the smoke had burned his eyes and that moment after the service when he'd stopped by the municipal building to retrieve some piece of paperwork he still needed to fill out and file.

The moment he'd met Sakakura Juzo.

He'd been seated on a bench outside the official's office, still dressed in the stiff black suit he'd worn for the funeral, when a tall, gangly boy had sprawled across the bench beside him. His sudden arrival had been abrupt enough to startle him back into wakefulness from the light doze he must have fallen into at some point while waiting for the official to return.

The boy himself had been too big and too rough and had sat far too close as if he has no concept of personal space or no patience for it. He'd been wearing an ill-fitting dark jacket even though it wasn't yet cool enough for such things and he'd smelled vaguely of chalk dust and sweat.

But what he remembered most about him was the way he had just slumped against the cushioned back of the bench with a heavy sigh, his head landing back against the wall behind them with a soft thump, and muttered: "I hate this shit."

 _I hate this shit._

He probably should have been offended.

No one has ever cursed in front of him before, or at least no one had ever done so on purpose and certainly no one his own age. Too afraid of being written up perhaps or maybe there had been something forbidding about his general countenance, he's not quite certain and it hadn't ever occurred to him to ask since it hardly mattered, but the fact remained that no one ever had.

There was nothing particularly funny about it.

Not about the way he said it, as he'd seemed so incredibly, bone-weary with exhaustion that it was as if the sentence itself tripped off his tongue and slumped down beside him as surely as the boy who said it had done.

Nor about the words themselves which were only truly remarkable for the weight of their unfiltered honesty.

And yet he still found himself laughing. Tiny, hiccupping little barks of laughter that he muffled against the sleeve of his suit jacket.

The boy beside him offered him a lazy smile as dazzling as it was unexpected and said, "You too, huh?"

"Yes," he breathed the word and somehow it felt as if he had been given permission to lose some of the tension that ached along his spine as he relaxed a little more heavily against the back of the bench. "Very much so."

"So, who left you holding the bag?"

"My mother," it felt like a confession, though the boy beside him nods sagely like he had expected this answer all along.

"My dad was like that when my mom died. Couldn't quite get it together, you know? But I guess, in the end, it kind of came in handy," he laughed, but not like it was funny. "You had to pick out stuff yet?"

"Just for the service. They wanted to handle everything themselves, I think, but we're not made of money."

"Ah, yeah, don't let them dick you around about that. My dad let this company handle the arrangements for my mom and it ended up costing so much we're still... _I'm_ still paying it off. So, you gotta watch it. Of course it sounds like you've already got a handle on it."

He smiled, unaccountably warmed by the unearned praise, "Hardly, I'm just good with paperwork."

"Makes one of us anyway, I'm crap at it, always have been. I can't read through all that legal crap and it's worse now since I'm a minor so… it's a pain."

"I could help you."

He's not sure why he volunteers exactly.

Or why the boy beside him offers him another brilliant smile as he accepts.

It's not even until he opens his phone to type in the boy's number that he realizes, "Your name. I don't know your name."

"Oh, right, sorry, Sakakura. Sakakura Juzo."

"Munakata."

"Just the one name? You going for a career as an idol or something?"

His ears warm as embarrassment at the oversight floods through his veins. "No, I… it's Kyosuke, sorry. Munakata Kyosuke."

"Munakata Kyosuke, huh? It's nice to meet you, Munakata Kyosuke."

"It's nice to meet you too," he said it with a smile wide enough that it felt like it might split his face in half. "Sakakura Juzo."

He'd had friends before, of course, but they were not like Sakakura.

No one of his previous acquaintance had ever been anything at all like Sakakura.

It wasn't until two months later, as Sakakura was helping him pack up his father's office, that they'd realized they would both be attending Hope's Peak High School.

"Huh, well that's a hell of a thing, isn't it? I'm a boxer, been doing it for years. Apparently I'm even better than I thought I was."

"I had wondered about the bruises."

"Yeah, it's a rough sport," he'd smiled, taping another box shut. "Pays the bills though. So what's your thing? Is it a sword thing? You've kinda got a shit ton of those."

He smiled sliding a finger along the hilt on one of the swords laid out across the desk, "Most of these are my mother's, actually. I have a few of my own, but they're not quite as nice as these. And I'm not nearly as good as she is. Student Council President... that's my talent... apparently."

"What the hell does that even mean?" He replied, shoving the box onto to the top of the stack near the door with a quiet grunt of effort.

"I honestly have no idea," he said, laughing as he rearranged a few items in his own box and layered in some packing paper to fill out the empty spaces. "I would be a legacy student since both my parents attended, but I'm not sure if they even care about such things. Still, it does make me wonder if they're not simply grasping for a reason to accept me."

"Wouldn't blame them if they were. You're pretty spectacular. I'd want you attending if it were my school."

"I think you're just easily impressed."

"Maybe," Sakakura replied, grinning. "Or maybe you just need to learn how to take a compliment at face value."

"Maybe I do," he replied, smiling.

"This mean you're just automatically gonna be student council president? Or do you have to run? We could make posters. Elect the _Ultimate_ Student Council President."

"It works as a title and a campaign slogan, I like it,"

"Yeah, well, they'd have to be crazy not to vote for you. I'd follow you to the ends of the earth, can't see why anyone else wouldn't do the same."

"I'd be lucky to have you by my side," he replied, taping his own box shut and handing it over to Sakakura so he could add it to the growing pile.

"Right? Who else would help you pack?"

"That's not at all what I meant," he'd laughed turning his attention back to emptying the desk drawers into another box on the floor.

As it had turned out, he did indeed just automatically receive the position to go with his title and all the responsibilities that went with it.

And then they'd met Chisa that first day at Hope's Peak and everything had just seemed to slot into place, as if the whole of his life had been building to that moment, and everything that had come before had just been prelude.

Almost from the very first moment they'd been inseparable.

And then….

And then.

"I'm so very sorry for your loss," he said again, staring at the ground, bowing so deeply that he half-wondered whether he shouldn't simply drop to his knees and save his back the trouble.

They had been yelling at him for the better part of an hour though he'd only actually caught half of what they'd said to him.

His cheek stung.

Chisa's mother had slapped him.

Twice.

He didn't blame them, of course, but he doesn't quite know what else to do, what else to say.

Doesn't know how to explain anything that happened when he still doesn't entirely understand it himself.

For all that he'd had days to process the events, days to consider Chisa's despair and all that came before… he still doesn't quite know how to quantify it, how to think of her and still remember how to breathe at the same time.

He'd been nowhere near being able to explain what had happened to anyone else in a coherent way.

He's not sure he ever will be.

He had still been dressed in the same clothes he'd been wearing for the past two days and he still smelt of blood and smoke.

Or perhaps he hadn't and the memory of it had just been wound so tightly around his head that he couldn't smell anything else.

He's not sure and as the hospital personnel generally steered clear of him except when they needed to check Sakakura's vitals or change the bandages and re-pack his eye, he wasn't altogether sure whom to ask, even if he cared to.

They'd been standing outside Sakakura's hospital room and he'd been grateful the confrontation was at least happening out there and not in there.

He hadn't wanted Sakakura to wake up to recriminations and grief.

He hadn't wanted to burden him any further than he already had.

"If it wasn't for you, she would still be alive!"

He can't argue that.

Wouldn't have tried even if he hadn't believed it to be true.

If it wasn't for him.

If they had never met.

How much better off would they have been without him?

If they had never known him, followed him, stood by his side?

If he had never cared for them or them for him, would she still be alive?

Would she have ever fallen into despair?

"I'm so very sorry for your loss," he'd said again, because there is nothing else to say.

He was a broken man standing at the edge of an abyss with only his guilt and the weight of obligation to tie him to the world.

He still is.

He had no words of further comfort to offer, no explanation that would ever suffice, all he had was a great, black pit of sorrow lined with the weight of all he has done and all he hadn't searing through the center of all that he was like acid until nothing remained but a worthless husk of man issuing worthless platitudes and insincere sympathies to the grieving parents of the woman he'd…

He'd….

There had been a flower in her hair the first time they'd met.

Not on purpose.

Nothing so contrived as that.

It had been the day of the entrance ceremony and his stomach had been a jumble of nerves.

He hadn't slept well the night before and as he'd stood there with his briefcase in hand staring up at the imposing edifice he couldn't help but wish that he'd been more forceful in insisting that Sakakura should ride with him so they could arrive together.

He was quite certain he'd refused to avoid being picked up at the the gym where he'd been staying. Probably out of some completely preposterous notion that he would disapprove or judge him based on the condition of his housing situation. It was, of course, ridiculous, but over the last few months he had grown to understand that for all his boisterous good nature and rough exterior, Sakakura was quite fragile in some respects.

Since he realized he'd tried to make an effort to respect that, to not insist or cajole whenever Sakakura refused him if only because he knew he would eventually cave if he did, regardless of what it cost him to do so. Having a friend so willing to put his needs above their own was a heady thing and one he tried very hard not to take advantage of.

So, when he'd turned him down, he'd allowed the issue to drop without further appeal.

Still.

He really wished Sakakura was beside him.

It had been a long and lonely ride and he would have been grateful for the company if for no other reason than it would have distracted him from the butterflies fluttering about in his belly.

Would have kept him from dwelling on the idea that he probably did not belong here at all.

"Are you lost?"

Her voice had been soft and teasing, as if she'd known perfectly well who he was or had no doubt he belonged here, but had simply taken the opportunity of his hesitation to speak with him.

"Ah, no, it's just… a bit more impressive than I had imagined," he replied, turning to look down at the girl who was standing beside him.

There was a stray petal caught in her hair, lingering pale against the brilliant red and before he'd had a chance to consider whether it was appropriate or not, he'd already leaned down and plucked it free.

She'd blinked up at him in surprise and so he'd held the petal out for her inspection, feeling a bit embarrassed that he'd done it so casually. Usually he wasn't one to touch others without invitation, or at all really, not before Sakakura had blown into his life and begun to make a habit of manhandling him at every opportunity.

She took the petal from him examining it briefly, before glancing back up at him with a smile.

It had felt like his heart had stumbled in his chest as it skipped into a faster rhythm, almost as if it had been as surprised as he was by how warm that smile had been.

"Are you a student here as well?" He'd asked, grasping for something to say to distract from the heat in his face and settling for some ungodly reason on the one thing that he already knew the answer to.

If she was offended by the question, there was no sign of it as her smile widened, "I am! Yukizome Chisa, at your service, and I already know who you are."

"You do?"

The petal had fallen away, already forgotten as she dusted her hands against her apron and hitched her bag over her shoulder.

"Of course, I do," she replied, her smile turning small and mischievous as she tapped her finger against the side of his bag where his name was quite clearly engraved on a shiny piece of metal. "Munakata _Kyosuke_."

His face felt hot as she reached out to caught his hand, tugging him forward towards the doors. "But, far more importantly, you're _also_ my very first friend here."

There'd been a breeze that day.

He liked to think, during those rare moments when he dwelled on thoughts of that day, that the petal she'd dropped had been caught by it and been carried away, somewhere far beyond the school walls, though he knew it might just as likely have simply fallen to the ground and been trampled underfoot.

He remembered the feel of that petal between his fingers, usually during late, lonely nights at his desk when she'd been elsewhere, just a comforting, affectionate voice over the phone. On nights like that, he'd very occasionally wished he'd kept hold of it, perhaps pressed it between the pages of a book.

It had always seemed a silly, fanciful thing to wish sentimentality on a boy who hadn't had but the very faintest idea that he'd met the girl who would eventually come to mean the world to him, but he supposed that was the way of lonely nights.

They made romantics of even the most unlikely souls.

But, ridiculous as it was, he'd still sometimes wished he'd taken it back from her, held onto it so he could have a token of that day to carry with him to fiddle with when he spoke to her and she seemed so very far away. Just a dream of happier times.

Something he could touch that would remind him of the reality of her.

Someone he cared for so deeply that he would have fought the world and everyone in it for her sake.

Someone he would eventually fail so spectacularly that his failure would lead to the destruction of everything she'd ever been or loved or valued.

Ever since he'd come to the realization of what his inattention had done to her, he'd sometimes wished he'd never plucked the flower from her hair at all.

That he'd ignored her or been short with her or that he hadn't attended Hope's Peak at all.

But he's not sure whether it would have changed anything at all in the end.

Perhaps they were simply always meant to end this way and no choice made on that day or any day after would have made any difference at all.

He's not certain.

He's not certain of anything really.

Not anymore.

Except that, beneath it all, Naegi was right in one respect.

He was glad that he had met her, known her, cared for her, even though in the end his affection had brought her only despair.

He really was an incredibly selfish person in that respect.

He's still not certain exactly when her parents finally left or if he said anything more substantial to them before they did.

He's not even certain how long he'd spent bowing to an empty hallway before the realization that he was alone took hold and allowed him to stand once more, feeling cast adrift in that empty corridor. But by the time he does realize his back and legs ache with the strain of holding that position and he returned to Sakakura's room to keep another lonely vigil alone with only the gloom of his thoughts and the relative comfort of Sakakura's steady breathing to keep him grounded in the moment.

He finally left for an hour the next day to shower and finally change into fresh clothes one of the Foundation's interns had brought by before returning with a stack of paperwork to his chair at his bedside.

It had given him something to focus on, something he could actually accomplish, though it hadn't actually made the time pass any faster and he'd constantly found himself distracted each time his breathing hitched on a sigh or he shifted in his sleep.

He'd fallen asleep eventually in that chair, though he hadn't meant to, and woke to find he'd spilled his papers all across the floor and that Sakakura had woken up while he slept.

Or he'd simply been crying in his sleep as the collar of his hospital gown and his cheeks had still been damp with tears.

Either way, he hadn't slept again after that.

He just… hadn't wanted to miss him.

Of course when Sakakura had finally had woken up in his presence, he hadn't known what to say. So, for a long moments, they'd just stared at each other.

And then, as he always did and possibly always would, Sakakura had broken the ice for him.

"Hey," he'd managed, his voice rough even after he'd cleared his throat a few times, "So, I guess we aren't gonna die in a shitty underwater death trap after all, huh?"

It had been easy from there to fall into the casual rhythm of meaningless conversation. They'd somehow managed be perfectly calm, perfectly civil, their words light and casual, through the nurses and a doctor coming in to check him over and the delivery of a meal for him to pick at.

Neither of them had made any mention about what Sakakura had said to him in the power room.

Neither of them had made mention of Chisa's name either.

Eventually, once he'd shoved the meal away and the hospital staff had finally seemed to have had enough of them scowling at them and vanished from the room, Sakakura had apologized to him.

He started off slow, stuttering, awkward, staring at his lap and occasionally lifting his arm as if to run a nervous hand back through his hair or over his face only to remember too late the impossibility of such an action.

Each time he did so, Sakakura would fall silent and drop his arm back to the bed, his lips quirking in a strange, wry smile.

And every time he did that he'd wanted to grab him, shake him, remind him that he didn't deserve that, that he wished he hadn't done that, not even to save them, that he was….

But he hadn't.

Instead he'd just watched, just sat there, useless and silent, waiting until Sakakura was ready to pick up the thread of conversation and stumble into speech once more.

As they sat there together, Sakakura had eventually confessed everything- or at least what had seemed like everything- that had happened during those dark days, the truth about Enoshima Junko that he'd kept from him.

And he hadn't asked why. He'd just accepted the confession with a nod and let Sakakura leave it at that.

He didn't need him to say it again.

Wasn't sure he could bear to hear it again.

Even if it were far, far too late, he was finally beginning to understand what they'd done and suffered for the love of him. Just as he understood that some of the fault must lie with him even if he did not yet know how much or what he could have done differently to prevent it.

He didn't need to hear Sakakura say how that decision had haunted him, how it had dogged his steps after that day.

He'd seen it clearly enough, even then, though he'd never allowed himself to consider the possibility. To put a name to the change in him after that day, how he'd become more distant, how he'd stopped being able to meet his eyes.

Just as he hadn't allowed himself to consider why, after that day, Chisa had suddenly become more affectionate, how she'd clung to him more tightly than she ever had before. He'd been grateful for her attention, her affection, so he'd never questioned the why.

Just as he'd never thought to question why Sakakura had begun insisting that he give him more assignments away from them both; the more challenging and dangerous the better.

He'd simply thought he'd been disappointed in himself for not seeing Enoshima for what she was. That he'd felt guilty for not seeing through her in time to stop her. He'd never questioned him on it because he knew it would be a sensitive subject, he'd just… given him what he'd asked for.

Because that had been _easier_.

He'd been so arrogant.

To think he'd known everything that was in their hearts.

He'd failed them both by taking the easy path of acceptance. By ignoring his own instincts in fear of alienating them. He'd trusted them, but he'd also been… afraid.

Afraid of the possibility that his instincts were right, the possibility of betrayal and what it might mean. So he hadn't even allowed himself to entertain the possibility, because it had just been easier to believe that what he knew was correct.

When all he'd ever truly been was wrong.

He'd been almost impossibly arrogant, believing always that he knew best, that there he wasn't wrong about them, about the nature of despair, about his plans for the future.

At some point he'd come to see his narrow view of the world as infallible and it had almost cost him everything he'd ever cared for.

He knew that.

And _yet_ ….

And yet when Sakakura had apologized again and again with that agonized, desperate look on his face, he'd simply… forgiven him.

Or at least he'd assured him that he had.

Because he was too afraid to imagine a life without Sakakura in it even now and he doesn't know what else to do and the palpable relief of Sakakura's face makes saying the words worth it no matter how they grate in his throat and sour on his tongue.

He's doing it again.

He knows he's doing it again.

And yet he can't force himself to say what needs to be said.

They don't talk about anything that truly matters.

They don't talk about Chisa.

They don't talk about the Future Foundation.

They don't talk about that soft confession.

They might as well not have talked about anything at all.

But he's still glad to hear his voice.

Even if it isn't saying what he needs to hear.

Even if hasn't been able to say anything he needs to say.

He'd fallen back asleep soon enough and when he had he'd left the room and gone out into the parking lot and sat in his car.

He'd sat in his car for hours.

Sat in his car until someone came and knocked on his window and asked if he was all right.

He'd assured them he was.

He wasn't.

He wasn't anything.

Not anymore.

Sometimes, as he sits outside the clinic waiting for Sakakura to finish the day's therapy, he feels as if he never actually left that moment at all.

As if he's simply stalled there choking on his own inability to act, his own cowardice, frozen in time and trapped by regret.

He can't move on.

He can't let go.

He can't do anything.

He _still_ can't do anything at all.

So when Sakakura finally breaks the stale pattern they've fallen into, it's a _relief_ ; a relief to let him take control of their interactions, to let him take the lead and shoulder all the responsibility of their relationship.

It's the easiest thing in the world to give him all the power to dictate their direction because he doesn't _want_ it.

He doesn't want to be the one giving orders anymore.

The one making the decisions and the one at fault when things fall apart.

He doesn't want to bear the responsibility of even this.

So he lets Sakakura set the pace and reshape their lives and, for the most part, it's effective.

He goes with him to appointments, to lunch after, to dinner some nights… whenever he asks, whatever he asks of him. He doesn't ask much, he's still… cautious, stepping lightly in a way he never would before as if the space between them is littered with broken glass.

But it's something.

It's enough.

And he's grateful that he's even willing to do this much.

For months he'd been waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Sakakura to finally tell him that he doesn't need him anymore, that he never did; for him to finally give voice to all the fears that threaten to drown him in the moments between.

He's clung to those interactions like a lifeline, but he wouldn't have blamed him for putting an end to it.

It was pathetic really.

It had taken everything he had just to show up the day he'd been released from the hospital.

"Physical therapy, great," he'd grumbled, shoving the paperwork they'd given him on the way out of the hospital into the bag resting on his lap.

"When's your first appointment?"

"Tuesday."

"I'll take you," he'd said it quickly, all in a rush, his heart beating too fast around the shape of panic just as it had been all morning.

Things had been simple while he'd been in the hospital.

Sakakura hadn't ever questioned that he would show up each day, that he would sit by his bedside flipping through paperwork or pretending to read books he never finished. He'd just accepted his presence with good grace and a fleeting smile and sometimes they'd made awkward, stilted conversation about the hospital staff or their injuries, but mostly they'd just existed in the same space.

And that had been enough.

But now that he'd been released….

He wasn't sure how to hold on to him.

It wasn't like before. He couldn't imagine just dropping by. They'd have no reason to see each other now. There was no shared purpose to bring them together, no work, no Chisa to force fun down their throats whether they liked it or not.

There was… nothing.

He couldn't stop shaking.

It probably wasn't noticeable.

His hands were gripping hard against the wheelchair they'd insisted he use to propel Sakakura out the doors and into the world beyond.

He'd drop him at his apartment.

The apartment only he'd only been to a handful of times.

The one Chisa had helped decorate.

And that would be it.

That would be the end of them.

He'd want to call him. He'd want to see him. But he would never be able to bring himself to darken his doorstep uninvited. He'd never pick up the phone because he wouldn't know what to say. And Sakakura would never want to impose. And so they'd just... end.

But this… he could do _this_.

This was a way to hold on.

"You don't have to do that," Sakakura murmured, fiddling with the strap on the bag as they rolled across the parking lot to the car. "I could just take the train or something, I mean, I know you're busy so…."

"I'm not!" And he wonders if it sounds as desperate as he feels. "Busy, I mean. I've… taken some time off."

Not a lie, but not quite the truth either.

An indefinite leave of absence wasn't exactly time off.

It wasn't a resignation.

It wasn't a promise to return.

It was just another way to avoid making a decision, to avoid committing himself to a future.

Another way to put off moving on.

He could see Sakakura's hesitation, but he didn't dare hazard a guess on what it meant.

"You'd be doing me a favor," he commented, trying for nonchalant and likely failing miserably. "I hate feeling this useless and it'll give me a chance to practice driving."

It's a lame, transparent excuse, but Sakakura accepts it all the same as if he were just waiting for a reason.

"Yeah, okay, just… tell me if it becomes inconvenient, huh? I can always just take the train or something instead."

So, he'd gotten to see him three times a week.

It had been _something_.

It had had to be enough.

It had been something he could hold on to and every time he'd gotten in his car to drive to Sakakura's place, he'd told himself that today he would stop making excuses. Today he would finally say what he needed to say. Today things would change.

And every time all that had come out of his mouth were the same awkward pleasantries, the same stilted attempts at conversation, the same long pauses.

Sometimes he'd sit for hours outside Sakakura's apartment after he dropped him off with his back against his door, listening to the sound of the television or the radio or just straining to hear him moving around inside, cursing when he bumped into something or couldn't do something he used to be able to do with ease.

It was pathetic.

And intrusive.

And _rude_.

He _knew_ that, he did, but somehow sitting there listening to Sakakura go about his life was the best part of his week. And by far the closest to normal that he ever felt.

Eventually he'd pick himself up and trudge back to his car, drive back to his hotel room and find something to fill the time until the next appointment.

Things had been better once Sakakura had started demanding they go out to lunch after his appointments. It was still strange and stilted and awkward and most of the time they ate in silence, fiddling with their phones for something to do while they waited for the food to come. But it was still… better.

He'd even started occasionally asking him out to dinner on the excuse of wanting to try this place or that and he'd always accept, trying and no doubt failing to appear casual or desperate for his company.

It still wasn't anything like it had been.

But it was something.

It could be enough.

And now…

The match.

Sakakura had invited him over to watch a boxing match.

At his apartment.

It would be just the two of them in a room together without the easy distraction of strangers provided by the restaurants they frequent, without the distance and purpose of those drives to and from the clinic.

Just hours of sitting in a room together alone with only the television and the sport Sakakura used to love- and maybe still does though he's never asked and so he isn't certain- to provide a relief from the pressure of company and conversation.

And he's standing in his room having what is almost certainly a minor panic attack because it had seemed so simple to agree to it in the moment and now that it was time to go… the idea of just going out the door seems like an impossible task.

He needs to go.

But he can't seem to catch his breath.

If he doesn't leave soon he'll be late and he can't stop shaking.

He still needs to stop at the store on the way.

But his heart is racing so fast and his head is throbbing and he can't quite bring himself to move.

He's been standing there staring at nothing so much as the inside of his eyelids for the better part of an hour, leaning his forehead against the smooth, cool surface of the hotel room door, losing himself in the memory of days gone by in an attempt to calm himself down and if anything it's just making everything _worse_.

He doesn't want to be late.

He doesn't want to go.

And he _does_.

The room is dark around him, but he has his keys in his hand and his wallet in his pocket.

All he needs to do is put on his shoes, open the door and go.

It should be simple.

Making decisions used to be simple.

Committing himself to a course of action used to be simple.

And yet every time, even when it's something as simple as one of those scheduled appointments, it takes him hours to work himself up to it.

He still considers it a victory that he manages to leave the safety and silence of his impersonal rented room at all.

He still hasn't managed to return to his apartment.

Not successfully.

He'd had someone go by and pick up a few changes of clothes when he'd still been staying at the hospital. Everything else he'd needed, he'd bought new to avoid returning.

He'd rented a room in a hotel after the first time he'd tried and failed to return home. He'd chosen one fairly close to Sakakura's apartment to make it easier to meet him. It helped that being closer to Sakakura meant being further away from his own place.

It wasn't that he hadn't tried.

He had.

He'd gone there a dozen times since Sakakura had been released from the hospital, but he'd never even managed to get his shoes off.

Never made it even an inch past the entryway, past the photo of them he kept on the wall there.

It had seemed like such a good idea at the time.

Something to greet him when he came home and it _had_ been.

It had made him feel better to be able to look at them and smile and whisper, "I'm home."

It hadn't mattered that there was no one to answer or that the apartment had been dark and often held only the lingering scent of the cleaner used by the maid who came by once a week just to keep things tidy while he was gone.

None of that had mattered at all, because they'd been there.

That brief, fleeting beautiful impression of happiness from years ago, and had always been more than enough to steal the loneliness from those rooms.

Now… now it was just a reminder of everything he'd lost through inattention and arriving far too late to a make any difference at all.

And he could.

Not.

Face it.

He fled every time, his heart in his throat, locking the door behind him with trembling hands and retreating to the hotel room that had become his sanctuary and his prison.

 _"I love you."_

Sometimes the sentiment echoed in his head at odd moments.

The strange, soft, almost dreamy way Sakakura had said the word, as if saying it were the simplest thing in the world.

As if it had been meant to be a gift rather than a blow.

How had he never noticed?

How had he never seen?

It was the first time anyone had ever said those words about... _to_ him.

His father had never been around and his mother….

His mother had been far more interested in his success than his affection.

Even Chisa had never...

He'd known, of course, he'd heard it every time she'd insisted on using his first name, the way each syllable seemed woven through with affection, but it hadn't... she hadn't...

She hadn't ever said the _word_.

He was pretty sure she'd just been waiting on him. Waiting on him to use her name, waiting for him to finally admit what she probably always knew as well.

But he never had.

So she'd left it at that, content to follow his lead in that as she had in all things. Content to gently tease and coax him along, confident in the knowledge that he'd come to it at his own pace.

And that… that had been fine and it was still… fine.

Better than fine, maybe.

He's not sure that he'd have been able to trust it now, to look back on it and not see it as manipulation, not have that word tarnished by the shadow of despair. So now he's almost glad she never actually put her affection forward in such a straightforward manner, that he'd kept her waiting all this time.

He almost wishes Sakakura had never said it either.

 _Almost._

Almost, but not quite, because there is this small, guilty, filthy part of him that clings to that word, that grips it tight and clutches it close with greedy hands. That turns it over and over in the early hours of the morning when sleep eludes him and takes comfort in it. In the idea, in that proof that Sakakura still cares for him despite all the many terrible ways in which he has failed him and continues to fail him.

He lays awake alone in his rented bed each night and finds himself pouring back over hundreds, thousands of moments trying to find everything he missed. He reexamines each through the bright lens of realization. In the months since that day, he's scoured each touch, each embrace, each word, obsessively searching for that moment when the affection of casual friendship had become something more.

And he can't find it, doesn't even know what to look for, not really, but...

There are moments….

Moments that stand out bright against the fading pages of memory that had never struck him as odd, but now, looking back over them with that knowledge, with that word in his head and his heart, he knows that for all that they'd never been anything more than friends, they'd never been just that either.

He could remember far too distinctly the feel of Sakakura's arm around him one particular night, the fondness and worry that made his grip far too tight and the rasping comfort of his voice in the dark.

No, they'd never been anything so casual as friends.

They'd always been closer than brothers even in the beginning.

Sakakura had always been free with his affection and he'd always enjoyed that about him. Enjoyed the way he tousled his hair or threw an arm across his shoulders, the warm press of his hand against his shoulder or his back. It had all been… nice. So different from anything he'd ever known.

Chisa had been the same way once she'd come along, always flinging herself into his arms or snagging his hand, dragging him with her with the surety that he was always happy to go along, but he's not sure he'd have been able to accept any of it so casually if Sakakura hadn't been there first to ease him into the normalcy of the idea.

The first time he'd ever asked Sakakura to stay overnight at his house they'd arrived back at the house quite late to find the house dark and quiet except for the light illuminating the kitchen. Dread had pooled in his stomach and he vaguely remembered the narrowed look in Sakakura's eyes, the way he'd stepped towards the kitchen as if he sensed something was wrong and wanted to defend him, protect him, as if he wished to shoulder that burden for him as he'd shouldered so many others over the years. But in the end, he'd caught him back, asked Sakakura to wait upstairs for him and he'd gone, just as he'd asked, reluctant though he may have been to leave him alone.

In the end, Sakakura had always done whatever he asked of him when he insisted.

She'd glared at him with red-rimmed eyes when he'd stepped into the kitchen, but he'd still taken a deep breath and forced a smile. "Mother, it's late."

"It is," she replied, the words slurring ever so slightly as they marched from her tongue, slow and measured. "Far too late for children to be out. Where have you been? I left you messages."

He knew that.

He'd seen the blinking light on his phone and chosen to ignore it. He'd seen the text message alerts as well, but after a glance he'd known they weren't anything he wished to answer. Not with Yukizome and Sakakura waiting for him.

He'd purposefully lingered too long, forced Sakakura to walk with him the long way home in the hopes of avoiding just this situation. He would never have invited Sakakura to stay if he'd suspected this would be one of those nights, but she had been out of town on business. It had seemed safe enough and by the time the first text had arrived the invitation had been issued and it was far too late.

"Did your meeting go well? I thought you weren't supposed to return home until tomorrow evening."

"Is that any excuse to neglect your studies and fool about until all hours of the night with those... friends of yours?" She'd replied, ignoring his question entirely which he supposed was just as well.

He'd just wanted... to be with them. To enjoy their company outside of their obligations of Hope's Peak.

"I apologize if I worried you."

The slap was expected and a price he was willing to pay for all that he'd hoped she would have given up and gone to bed by the time they returned.

"That boy has been a terrible influence on you. That girl as well."

"They're my friends," he almost doesn't recognize his own voice, pinched and strained.

They've had this conversation before.

It doesn't make it any easier. Especially not with her voice made loud by too much sake and Sakakura waiting on him just upstairs.

"You need a better quality of friends. Housekeeping and boxing? What useless talents."

"Better than student council president," he replied evenly, fingers curling against his sides.

"Get out of my sight," her voice was cold as winter, slurring only the slightest bit as she glared at him and took another sip from the glass in her hand. "We will speak again in the morning."

Sakakura was waiting for him at the top of the stairs, fingers bumping over the small purring lump of calico fur in his lap. He's not terribly surprised, but he hates the idea that he might have heard any of that.

He glances up at him as he pauses a few steps down from where he sits, "Hey."

"Hey," he'd replied, waiting patiently while Sakakura flicked his fingers over Maki's head once more before setting the little cat aside and shoving to his feet, standing aside to let him pass.

His cheek still burned and it was the easiest thing in the world to let Sakakura catch his hand and lead him to his own room as if he were the guest rather than the host.

Inside it was dark and cool and he'd never invited anyone up to see it before.

It seemed to recall it being rather embarrassingly plain.

Sakakura released his hand once they were inside, the door shut firmly behind them, and had immediately gone about the business of distraction by making a show of examining the few personal touches that made the room his. As if it were all far more interesting than any of it actually was.

"You do calligraphy?"

"A little," he replied, sitting gingerly on the edge of his neatly made bed, hands resting in his lap. "They insisted I try a number of different things when I was young to see if I had the aptitude for them. I like calligraphy and the sword best."

"Huh. That suits you."

"You're the first one to say so."

"Then I guess I'm also the first one to know, huh? We're just really into sharing today, aren't we?"

"I guess so."

"Then I owe you one. Let's see, ah, I've got just the thing. So, I was four when I got into my first fight. Little girl named Mariko just about knocked my head off for making fun of her shirt."

He tried to picture it. Some anonymous girl with pigtails hitting some tiny version of Sakakura and sending him sprawling in the dirt, but try as he might he simply couldn't.

He couldn't picture anyone ever getting the best of him that way.

"I don't have a futon," he said instead. "And I forgot your water."

"It's fine," he replied immediately, taking the sudden change of subject in stride. "I can sleep on the floor. I've slept worse places." He glanced back at him briefly, offering him a smile that stole the bitter edge from his words as he turned back to flip through a pile of completed practice sheets. "This one night, before they started letting me sleep at the gym, I slept on my old neighbor's porch. Woke up to find I'd become the neighborhood bed warmer for like three stray dogs. Pretty sure one of them peed on me too."

"You could have stayed here."

It's an old argument.

"I barely knew you then and I don't like to impose; besides it was embarrassing. Hell, it's still embarrassing, but it wasn't all that long before I was winning enough to pay my own way so it doesn't really matter that much."

He nodded, too familiar with Sakakura's easily bruised pride to have expected anything else. "You can sleep with me if you like," he offered, knowing even as he did what his response would be.

"Don't be stupid," he replied, quick and brusque, turning away to peek out the window into the night beyond. "There's no way we can both cram into that little bitty bed."

He could admit it would have been a tight fit.

"Of course, I apologize. You should take the bed as you're the guest."

"Don't be stupid. It's your bed, you sleep in it."

"If you won't take it, then I suppose we'll both be sleeping on the floor."

" _Munakata_."

"You have my answer, Sakakura. Choose."

"Fine, floor it is, but don't you come whining to me about how badly your back hurts afterward."

It's a little challenging to find enough blankets to make it tolerable, but in the end the lights are off and they're both laid out side by side on the floor.

He's almost asleep when Sakakura's fingers brush his cheek and he opens his eyes to look at him, "Hm?"

His gaze seems very dark and far more serious than usual, "You know I'd do anything for you, right?"

And he does.

He'd known for years and the knowledge had always made him feel steady, confident in a way few other things in his life had.

He nods, not quite trusting his voice.

Sakakura breathes out a sigh, "Good, I…"

There's a bang in the hall and it throws tension down his spine and he glances towards the door, wondering too late if he remembered to lock it and knowing he had not. And even before he's fully processed this realization, the knob is rattling and Sakakura's hand is just there, pressing the door closed as if it's nothing. The knob rattles again and he can hear his mother muttering to herself in the hall.

He's not sure what she says, but he can guess the gist since he's just barely able to make out the word 'ungrateful'.

"I'm not supposed to be here, am I?" Sakakura commented once her footsteps had died away to silence behind the snap of a door.

"No," he answers honestly, fingers digging in against the pillow.

"Okay," he says simply, getting up and clicking the lock on the door before slumping back down into his pile of blankets. "I won't ask. You want me to try and sneak out now?"

"Thank you," he murmured, ducking back beneath his blanket and turning away to hide the heat in his face. "No. Stay."

"Anything you need."

Then there's an arm looping over him and for a moment Sakakura is leaning in close, so close against his back that he can feel the heat radiating off him, feel the harsh gust of his breath stirring his hair. "It's fine. Whatever I can do for you… it's fine. Just use me. Whatever you need, whenever you need it, you don't even have to ask. I wasn't kidding about that."

"Your friendship is enough," he whispered.

He wanted to grab him, to return the tight clench of his embrace to do... _something_ , but he can't bring himself to move. "This is enough."

"Yeah, okay," he'd rasped after a moment and his grip had tightened, his arm squeezing around him so hard that it was almost difficult to breathe. "As long as you need me, I'll be here."

It had just been for a moment and then he'd let him go, rolled over and away with a muttered good night and he'd barely been able to push an answering word through his frozen lips.

But he'd never forgotten those words, still remembered the way his voice had cracked over them as if Sakakura were feeling all the things he'd never been able to feel for himself. As if all his emotions had leaked out, been squeezed out of him by the strength of his grip and he'd let him take that burden from him as he'd let him take so many over the years.

He'd tried so hard, so hard, to be everything he was supposed to be, to be everything his mother wanted him to be and everything first Hope's Peak and then the Future Foundation had expected him to be and, most of all, he had tried to be everything they needed him to be and all he'd ever done was fail them, all he'd ever done was lean on them until they cracked under the pressure.

Had he ever really been their friend at all?

Had he ever been able to give them back even half of what they'd given him?

Had he ever really even bothered to know them at all?

In the power room, it had taken him long moments of kneeling there, of mourning him prematurely to realize that he was still breathing, to realize that while he'd been too late to help him, too late to keep him from harm, too late in realization to avoid hurting him, he might not be too late for this at least.

He'd eased him down and fumbled Saiko's bottle from his pocket, glad that he'd taken it from her though he'd only ever intended to use it on himself.

Kimura's skills had been beyond compare, but... there was so much blood. Still it was a chance and he was already uncapping the bottle before he could allow doubt to stay his hand and tipping it into Sakakura's mouth, massaging his throat to encourage him to swallow. He wasn't sure how effective it would be, but it's something and Sakakura doesn't spit it back out and that's something at least.

He wasn't certain how much time passed, how long he sat there with Sakakura's head in his lap his hands resting against his shoulders.

Wasn't even sure how long Sakakura had been awake, staring up at him before he'd heard him whisper those words, soft and wondering.

"I love you."

He'd said something back, something soft and meaningless, more on reflex than with purpose. He still had no idea what though it had probably been some fond platitude that he was sure had been absolutely meaningless and then Sakakura's eyes had drifted closed and he'd found himself alone once more.

Alone in the red-lit darkness, choking on panic with each too soft, labored breath he took. He touched trembling fingers to the wet red spread of blood across his chest.

His fault.

This was all his fault.

He'd done this to him.

He'd brought him to this.

And he still said he _loved_ him.

Loved.

 _Him._

And he'd tried to….

He'd wailed like a child then, composure cracking and shattering like superheated glass, cries echoing deafeningly loud in that tiny room, because it was just... it was too _much_.

He had meant to say he was sorry, to say he was sorry again and again until it _mattered_ , but instead he'd given only the meaningless comfort of words he knew to be lies. Help wasn't coming, there was no help for them down here and certainly none that would reach them soon enough to make a difference.

He had been too late.

Always too late to realize and too late to make a difference and too late to say anything important, anything that would actually matter and it was all meaningless without Chisa and Sakakura there beside him.

What did it matter if he finally found the words to express the sorrow, the horror, the guilt that threatened to eat him alive in those moments and after when there would be no one left to hear them?

And even if there were, did he deserve to speak them?

To let those words earn him forgiveness he didn't deserve?

He hadn't even heard the damn kids come in behind him, hadn't felt Naegi's hand settle against his shoulder, hadn't registered his presence at all until he'd been squeezing around in front of him, kneeling down and ripping cloth into strips to help better bandage Sakakura's wounds.

"He'll be okay," Naegi was saying, soft and firm as if by saying it he could make it so. "Byakuya will be here any minute and we'll get him some real help."

He took a shaky breath, the fragile flicker of hope kindling in his chest, a flame flickering in a hurricane. "Pretty words."

" _True_ words," Naegi answered with a hint of a smile. "No one else is going to die today."

And somehow, no one had.


	2. Point A to Point B

_"I wondered what you'd have on the side with a plate of Deep Fried Anxiety. Pickles? Coleslaw? Potato-strychnine mash?"_  
\- Robin McKinley, Sunshine

 **-ooo-**

The sound of the hotel door closing behind him - incredibly loud in the otherwise silent corridor - made him flinch even though he'd known it was coming.

The carpet beneath his feet is dark and thick and expensive, covered in vague ascetically pleasing interlocking circles and lines, that contrast sharply with the pale walls and tall windows that bracket each room. Bright sunlight cuts across the carpet in sharp, slanting shapes, washing the carpet a deep dark wherever it touches. The hotel is new enough, but he can already see where the carpet has begun to fade in uneven patches here and there to match the passage of the sun.

The entire building is a breathtaking waste of space, utterly inefficient, peppered throughout with a series of bizarre design choices that are utterly impractical and doom the entire venture to failure.

Down the hall, a door opened and a child dashed out into the hall, running full tilt to slam into the wall by the elevator, gleefully pressing the button again and again as his mother shuts the door behind them and hurried to catch up, hitching her purse up higher on her shoulder.

He forces himself to step away from his door, to turn woodenly away from the hall away from the passengers awaiting the elevator's inevitable arrival towards the at the end of the hall stairs, counting his steps as he goes.

It's more habit than desire so he thinks, perhaps, that doing so should provide him at the least the comfort of the familiar, but it doesn't.

It requires twenty-two steps to move from his door to the stairwell.

Another two long strides to cross the landing to the stairs, easily covered before the heavy door falls shut behind him with a click and thud that echoes even over the sharp clip of his footfalls against the steps.

His room is located on the fourteenth floor.

He has told himself on numerous occasions that the descent from his room to the parking area below is a reasonable amount of exercise. That making that trek three times a week or more makes up for all the strict training regiment he's all but abandoned in the aftermath of all that happened.

He knows this is a lie.

Yet his sword remains propped in the corner near the door gathering dust.

Sometimes he stares at it for minutes at a time in an attempt to gather the will to pick it up once more.

It remains untouched.

Someone had cleaned the blood off the scabbard and hilt before it had been placed with the rest of his belongings at the hospital.

He's not sure who would bother.

He has no idea if the blood has been cleaned from the blade itself or if it had been left to rust.

 _"You know why."_

He couldn't ever quite remember what it felt like.

To say those words.

Not really.

So much about that long, long night is buried beneath the memory of what came after when the reality of those righteous moments had been swallowed by regret, consumed by the weight of grief for actions he could never take back, but most of all for the part of him that still, _still_ didn't regret what he had done.

That nasty, mean, horrifying portion of his soul that still howled for blood, for vengeance for the girl he loved and the boy he'd thought he'd known so well and - perhaps most of all - for the idealistic, trusting fool he'd been to be so blinded by his own desires that he'd failed everyone and everything he'd ever truly cared for by not noticing sooner.

On bad days, he could hear those words over and over in the back of his head, an endless loop that haunted his waking hours as much as what little sleep he managed to get each night.

Sometimes he allowed his gaze to linger too long on that sword wondering...

But whenever he dared to reach for the hilt...

Not to use it, no, never that, but just to check, to see...

He _can't_.

Can't breathe.

Can't swallow.

Can't see past the darkness rising up to close around him making the sword and the hotel room they occupy seem a distant, unlikely reality overwhelmed by the stench of blood and smoke, the feel of steel sliding home, the hiss of blood meeting superheated metal, the choking gasp blowing warm against his face, that wet cough, the splat of blood against tile and the bitter metallic taste of despair on his tongue.

Eventually he would come back to himself, slowly, body aching, drenched in sweat, choking on nothing, trying to drag oxygen into lungs that hurt for the lack.

Sometimes, in those moments, with his fingers and forehead pressed to the carpet, he thinks about the way the blade sounds as it sings free of the scabbard and he's glad he can't bring himself to touch it.

He's not altogether certain he can be trusted.

If he's honest, the sword has very little to do with why he makes a point of taking the stairs each time he leaves the hotel even when, like now, he's running far too late to be wasting time in such a way.

He'd taken the elevator once.

And now every time he thinks about attempting it again he sees that old woman peering down at him kindly asking if there was someone she could call for him or if he wanted her to go get help.

He'd gone to meet Sakakura reeking of fear and sweat and he'd been so certain he would notice.

That he would say something.

But he hadn't.

He'd been shaking as he drove back to the hotel afterwards, unable to decide whether he was glad or disappointed.

Whether it had been inattention or discretion that had kept from uncomfortable questions or the familiar brush of a hand against his shoulder.

"Where is your dignity, Kyosuke?" His mother had asked, glaring at him over the rim of her glass.

Her grip had been unsteady, her eyes shot red in the corners and shadowed dark from late or sleepless nights.

He'd had years to resign himself to his mother's disappointment and yet it still stung his pride every time she dismissed his accomplishments, his ambitions, as less than what she expected. He continued through the kitchen without faltering, drawing a glass free from the cabinet and answering her question calmly, "The Future Foundation is an international organization with branches all over the world. An education that allows me a boarder perspective can only aide me in my ambitions. I will be overseeing the completion of the establishment of this newest facility, it is not a small job and there is no shame in it. It will prove precisely the stepping stone I need to continue my assent to the top of the organization."

"The only part of the Future Foundation that truly matters is the Academy. That's where the true power is. You can not possibly believe you'll be able to wrest power from Kirigiri's hands from thousands of miles away do you?"

His fingers tightened against his glass as he filled it from the tap, lifted it to his lips, and drank it down in slow, measured gulps as she continued, her own drink giving her words just the barest hint of slur, "If you had simply _listened_ to me and made some connections that were actually worthwhile during your time there, you wouldn't need to go to such lengths to gain power, you would already have it."

"I am satisfied with my choices, mother," he replied, setting the glass in the sink and turning on his heel, leaving the room and the woman within behind.

They hadn't spoken again.

Not even when he packed the last of his belongings and the movers came to take them away.

Not when he left that house for the last time with Sakakura's arm slung across his shoulders and Yukizome's hand tucked into the curve of his elbow.

As they'd gotten into his car, he'd thought he could feel her eyes on him, but when he turned to look there had been only the shift of white curtains to bring that chapter of his life to a close.

They hadn't spoken again, but he had never doubted his course.

It had been easy to be confident when he had those who believed in him absolutely and supported him without question to depend on.

It hadn't mattered in the least to him that that support and belief had not come from his family home.

He wasn't certain when his mother had died.

Only that it had been sometime during the first year of Despair when he'd been waging a war in filthy alleys and burned-out buildings, streets blocked by the remains of cars abandoned and bodies of those left to rot in the smoke-filled ruins of the city.

If she hadn't passed away that year, he might never have known how close an eye the Foundation kept on Hope's Peak graduates. It had been an assistant from the Tokyo branch that had called him to informed him of her passing.

There'd been no further details than that.

He still wasn't certain whether she'd died fighting or in her bed, a casualty of despair or drink.

It seemed impossible to imagine she might have been felled by disease or fate.

There had only been a strange almost comforting numbness that had come with the knowledge that she was gone.

The Future Foundation had seen to the arrangements, he'd been told.

He'd never followed up about it.

Somehow there had never seemed to be time even after the worst of the fighting had resolved, even though as a dutiful son he knew he should.

There had still been Despair to eradicate.

He wondered sometimes - very late at night as he lay upon the rumpled sheets of his rented bed watching shadows move across the wall - whether her restless spirit had laid a curse upon him.

It seemed possible in the depths of night, listening to the thumps and occasional murmur of voices from the hall or adjoining rooms, but with the light of dawn came the certainty that there were no restless spirits and no curses, only himself and his own failures.

Which was somehow both comforting and horrible at once.

His mother would have found the idea of her only son cowering in the face of an elevator humiliating.

Though she might have also found some satisfaction in the knowledge that she had been right in her disapproval of him and his choices.

Still, even if it were cowardly, taking the stairs allowed him to avoid the constant parade of strangers he might otherwise have met in the hall or lobby, those inattentive few who might jostle against him as they struggled with luggage and loud, unruly children.

It wasn't quite that he disliked them, but where once he might have smiled at them or politely offered assistance, the idea of doing so now... filled him with dread.

Just leaving his room is daunting enough without the added complication of whether it might be better to offer assistance or ignore those he meets along the way.

Neither option ever feels completely correct and a small part of him seems to worry endlessly about the possibility even though his habits rarely allow such choices to present themselves.

The stairs, fortunately, are typically empty but for the occasional child or athlete seeking to prove something by racing up or down past him.

It's easy to ignore them, however, when he has something to occupy his mind, even if that something is as mundane a task as counting steps.

It's simple, straightforward task, but it's one that keeps him focused on the present that gives his mind no time to wander to the what ifs and might have beens that occupy his thoughts within the walls of his hotel room, the silence of his car. In the stairwell, it's a simple matter to keep his momentum, to step quickly from one stair to the next, counting them in his head as he passes from stairs to landing and back again.

Round and round, over and over, gaining speed as he goes, moving faster and faster until he finally reaches the bottom floor at such a brisk walk that it's almost a run and he slams into the door at the base of the stairs, panting as he shoves it aside and spills out into the brisk winter air of the garage.

He can't quite catch his breath, but it doesn't matter, it never matters, because the momentum is enough to propel him forward across the parking garage. The sound of his footsteps almost lost beneath the hum of generators and the distant cacophony of other cars, of engines revving and dying some undeterminable distance away.

It kept him moving breathless through the sixteen long strides to his assigned space and if it feels as if he's wading through water, hip-high and getting deeper with each new step, it's a simple enough matter to ignore it, to focus on the count and disregard the tightness in his chest, the reluctance that is beginning to make itself known in the brief hesitation of the last few steps.

It's almost a surprise when - between one step and the next - he arrives at his destination, his hands landing to catch himself against the familiar cool of metal, the family shape of well-traveled dents and scratches.

They hadn't always been there.

When they'd returned to Japan, not long before Enoshima had broadcast her twisted game for all the world to see, he'd retrieved it from the long-term parking garage where he'd left it and discovered those dents, scratches. Found the back windows broken, glass strewn across the seats and the floor.

The glove compartment left open, dusty papers trailing out like a ragged tongue, mocking him.

At the time, he'd considered it fortunate that it had not been more badly damaged. After all, many of the cars they'd passed on their way into the garage had been burnt out or overturned.

Perhaps the rioters had tired by the time they'd reached the lower levels, he would never know for certain.

He'd had the windows repaired, fitted with glass more suited to the times in which they lived than the fragile factory standard, but he'd left all those scratches and dents as they were. There hadn't seemed much point to fixing cosmetic damage when the car had been in rather poor shape to begin with and was likely to be in even worse shape by the time they'd finally quelled the riots and retaken their home.

It simply seemed… impractical.

Perhaps he had thought when everything was said and done he would address those issues.

Or perhaps he had thought he'd simply rid himself of it, trade it in for something newer, faster, pristine.

Or perhaps he simply hadn't thought anything about it at all.

His hands were always shaking by the time he slips the keys into the lock and twists.

Today was no exception to that rule.

The lock clicked and the knob popped up.

"Seriously?" Sakakura had asked from somewhere behind him.

He couldn't help smiling.

He could practically feel his baleful, disapproving glare as he surveyed the dented car with its chipped blue paint and rusty antenna and found it desperately wanting, "This thing's basically a motorized roller skate, you know that, right?"

"It's fuel efficient," he replied easily, pulling the door open and bending down to peer inside the interior.

"It's a death trap is what it is. You could get hit by a freaking golf cart and this thing would probably crumple like a tin can."

"Nonsense," he laughed, turning back to smile at him. "I checked and it has a perfectly decent safety rating. Besides it isn't as if I'll even be spending all that much time in it. After we graduate it'll spend as much time in storage as out of it, you know. I just need something to get me from here to there and back again while I'm in Japan. "

"Assuming it can even manage that much," Sakakura grumbled, turning to Yukizome in search of support. " _Please_ tell him he needs to get something safer, would ya? He might actually _listen_ to sense if it's coming from you."

"Hm, I think it's cozy," she commented thoughtfully, her chest pressing briefly against his arm as she sidled closer to peer around his shoulder into the interior.

He could feel the warmth of her body even through his jacket.

He'd stood abruptly, ducking back and turning away as the burn of embarrassment scurried across his cheeks. Sakakura smirked at him knowingly while Yukizome continued to poke about the interior, apparently oblivious to his obvious distress.

"Aw, but look at it! It's even missing the lid for the console storage. Kyosuke, I think it's sweet that you want to give the ugliest car at the lot a home," she called back to them, flashing them a quick smile before returning to her inspection.

"Munakata Kyosuke, champion of the unloved and unwanted strikes again," Sakakura snorted, shaking his head as he clapped a hand down against his shoulder, firm but gentle. "I should have known."

He coughed to hide the beginnings of a smile against the back of his hand, "Funny, I don't recall ever championing anything that wasn't worthwhile."

And it was Sakakura's turn to flush and look away, always so easily embarrassed by simple truths.

A fact that he'd always been grateful for in the face of Yukizome's ability to cheerfully brazen out any given situation without the faintest hint of shame. It had always made him feel a little better to know that he wasn't the only member of their little group who was easily flustered.

"Take us for a ride, Kyosuke!" Yukizome demanded suddenly, calling his attention back to her just in time to see her hike up her skirt and scramble into the backseat.

His face burning face flared hotter as he shifted his gaze away once more. He was only vaguely aware of Sakakura's grip squeezing one last show of support against his shoulder before releasing him entirely and ambling around to jerk open the passenger side door. "Might as well," he called as the door squealed a heady protest against the sudden demand which made him laugh as he ducked down to adjust the seat. "Since you're dead set on buying this hunk of junk, we might as well start getting used to it."

"It's not so bad," Yukizome commented, patting the headrests and smiling brightly as he eased himself into the driver's seat. "It'll look like a whole different car once I've finished cleaning it up."

"Make sure you don't do too good a job," Sakakura grimaced as he folded his long legs in against the dashboard and shut the door behind him. "Pretty the grime is all that's holding it together."

"Don't be mean," she replied, clicking her tongue.

"It ain't mean if it's true."

"So, where are we going, Kyosuke?" She asked, leaning forward to wind her arms around his shoulders, breath warm against his ear.

She'd always asked that.

Always done that.

"Nowhere until you sit back and fasten your seatbelt," he'd replied each time, cheeks warm and lips turned up in smile.

"Does that mean we can stay like this if I don't?"

"Nah, pretty sure the dealership fella would come and kick us all out eventually," Sakakura had offered that first day, rolling down the window and leaning an arm out into the warm, spring air. "Let's get this show on the road already. Assuming this junker even starts."

"You're no fun," Yukizome had sighed, falling back into her seat, the sound of worn nylon winding out and a buckle clicking into place signaling her reluctant compliance with his request.

The car leapt to life at the turn of the key just as it had that day and every day after.

It settled into a rumbling idle as he dropped his hand to the gear shift and turned to offer Sakakura a satisfied smile, "See? Perfectly serviceable."

Sakakura snorted, the hint of a smile playing across his lips, "Sure, until you leave the parking lot and the muffler falls off."

In his mind, he could still hear their laughter echoing in the silence of the present.

He swallowed and opened his eyes to find himself alone once more.

Sometimes he thought about getting a new car.

Of driving the current one into the ocean, letting it and his memories sink beneath the surface until there was only darkness.

It was an idle, meaningless thought.

But it stayed with him as he put the car in reverse and backed out of the space.

The silence around him seemed deafening even after he'd turned on the radio in an attempt to drown it out.

 **-ooo-**

He was going to be late.

No, perhaps he was already late.

It had taken him longer than usual to leave and now he was stalled in this place, in this moment, and he was going to be late.

He was going to make the wrong choice.

Everything was going to be ruined.

To fall apart around him.

Their relationship was hanging by a single fraying thread.

He could feel it.

And once the thread had broken there would be no fixing it.

Nothing he could do would make it right.

He needed to make the correct choice.

There was a correct choice to be made. There was _always_ a right choice and a wrong choice.

And making the right choice used to come as naturally as breathing.

He never second guessed himself, never doubted, always been confident in the path he chose, the road he walked.

That was his talent.

Or at least that's what he'd _thought_.

He'd spent so much time thinking about it that first year.

What a talent like Ultimate Student Council President truly meant.

And he'd decided finally that it was simply a convenient label for a very specific set of skills. For the drive to lead, the confidence to make decisions, the wisdom to make the decisions that were the best for everyone and the perseverance to see them through.

It was what had made him who he was, that was what had made people wish to follow where he led.

He could do this.

Even if... even if he wasn't quite the same.

He could still... it was still his talent.

It was still who he was.

There was a right choice to be made here.

He just… he just needed to think, to consider all the options and choose the correct one with confidence.

It was just….

It was so _warm_.

The sweat sliding down the back of his neck to stain the collar of his shirt was frigid, slippery trails of ice across his overheated skin.

Every breath seemed like a chore, scalding his throat and lungs.

He might be ill.

He might be running a fever.

Perhaps he should just... go back. Call Sakakura and tell him that he wasn't feeling well, that he couldn't make it.

Only...

That might be enough.

He'd invited him.

He'd be disappointed.

It must have been so difficult to reach out, to offer, if he disappointed him now...

He darted a tongue over dry, cracking lips and closed his eyes, forcing himself to breath, breath, breath through the growing sense of dread.

He could do this.

He was still...

But the heat just made it... so difficult to _think_ , to consider his options, made it impossible to make an informed choice.

There were just so many _options_.

Light or dark.

Cheap or expensive.

Import or domestic.

Had there always been so many different types of beer?

So many options?

He opened his eyes again, staring through eyes gone blurry at the shelves, at those dark bottles with their cheerful boxes and labels lined up across them neat and tidy, taunting him. The sheer variety available felt like a punishment.

Around him people bustled about their business, murmuring irritable apologies when they tread too close and ended up jostling him this way and that as he stood frozen in the face of far too many options for what should have been a relatively simple choice.

Maybe this had all been a mistake.

Maybe he should have just turned down Sakakura's invitation.

It wasn't as if there wouldn't be other times, other fights.

But, no, _no_ , he'd _wanted_ to do this.

He'd been glad for the invitation. Glad that things were going well enough that Sakakura felt comfortable inviting him into his home.

It had seemed like a good sign.

Like their relationship was on the mend.

How could he possibly have turned down such an overture? Especially when he could so plainly see what it had cost Sakakura to make it? Seen the way his fist clenched against the edge of the table, the way his leg had bounced beneath, tapping out a morse code of anxiety as he waited for an answer like a guilty man awaiting a verdict.

No, accepting the invitation… it hadn't been a mistake.

He just… he just needed to _get there_.

Everything would be fine once he arrived at Sakakura's apartment.

He'd answer the door and smile at him, relieved because he'd thought maybe he wouldn't show.

He always looked that way now.

 _Always._

Even when he was on time, even when his eagerness to see him brought him to his door minutes early… he still always looked as if he were surprised to find him there.

He'd scowl to cover it up, offer that same tired argument about not wanting to impose, about being able to make his own way, but in those few brief moments between when he opened the door and when their eyes met… he could see the tension easing from his shoulders, see the furrow of his brow smoothing with _relief_.

No, this wasn't a mistake.

But maybe beer was the wrong thing to bring.

Had he ever even asked Sakakura what he liked to drink?

If he liked to drink at all?

Was he even supposed to bring anything in the first place?

Was it weird that he was bringing something?

Or would it be weird if he didn't?

He was certain there was some accepted social convention for these situations, but he wasn't certain what it was.

He'd never bothered to learn.

He'd had Chikusa.

She'd always...

He shoved his trembling hands in his pockets.

She... she would have known what to bring.

Would have known how to fix things between them.

Would have managed in the space of minutes what he hadn't been able to do given _months_.

Sometimes it seemed as if she knew everything he did not.

Everything.

"Where'd you learn to do this?" He asked, more to have something to occupy his mind while she knelt between his splayed out legs with his bloodied hand cradled in her lap as she cleaned and sealed the wound.

"Ah, one of my students had a talent for nursing, but she lacked self-confidence so I had her teach me a few things. She loved helping others so much and it's really come in handy, hasn't it?"

She smiled up at him, fingers pressing in a little too hard against his palm, unshed tears glistening in the fading sunlight that streamed in through the broken windows of the building they were currently holed up in, "They were such good kids, Kousuke. Why couldn't I save them?"

"It's not your fault," he murmured, uninjured hand settling against her hair as she lunged forward to bury her face against his chest, her shoulders already shaking with silent sobs. "You did everything you could for them."

She turned her face up to him, minutes or hours later - cheeks damp and blotchy - and offered him a watery smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, "Thank you, Kousuke. You're always so kind to me."

And he smiled, pained, because he'd done nothing to earn her thanks. He could not heal the rift losing them had left in her heart, could not stop blaming himself for putting her in harm's way for his own selfish reasons. The best he was able to offer her in moments like those was a tense embrace and that same weak, ill-conceived promise to eliminate Despair.

A promise he still intended to keep, whatever the cost.

But for all his efforts, Despair was still running rampant, the once lively streets of Tokyo overrun by terrors that drove people into the cold embrace of death or despair in _droves_. Hope was a flickering candle in the wind-blown darkness always on the verge of being snuffed out by a world rife with chaos and horror. They fought, strived to shore it up, to create it anew, but the ceaseless battle, the loss of subordinates and coworkers, teammates and friends, the worry that at any moment Yukizome and Sakakura might be ripped from him by a cruel turn of fate….

Every day was a struggle.

Even for him.

"Kousuke?"

He glanced up, startled, he'd been so lost in his own thoughts that he hadn't seen her move, hadn't seen her close the distance between them, hadn't seen her rise from her knees or felt her slide her arms around his neck, bring her face so close that he could feel the warmth of her breath across his lips, smell the fruit she'd eaten when they'd stopped to rest earlier, see where those overripe berries had stained her lips red.

He could smell the sweet scent of her shampoo mingled with the more familiar tang of sweat, dust and ash.

Her hair fell around them as she leaned forward.

Leaned closer and closer still until her forehead touched down against his own.

Until her smile seemed to consume the world, brilliant as hope in the darkness of the night closing in around them.

"May I kiss you, Kousuke?" She asked, voice soft as a secret.

They were at _war_.

He was covered in blood and dirt, the grime of days of living rough as they moved through the city reclaiming the streets one by one fighting towards Hope's Peak, towards whatever fresh horrors awaited them there, to salvage what they could from the wreckage, to reclaim the survivors who were even now fighting to cling to hope against overwhelming odds.

They'd lost so much.

He couldn't bear to have this when he didn't know if he'd be able to keep it.

Before he had a chance to answer, her lips brushed against his, just the barest touch, there and gone again in the blink of an eye and then she was leaning back, still smiling as if nothing had happened, as if he'd dreamed the whole encounter, as if they hadn't just had their first kiss is a demolished arcade in the middle of a war zone.

As if it had meant nothing at all.

"Maybe next time," she'd commented, her smile slipping into something wistful, almost sad.

He had almost pulled her close just to banish the sadness from her face, but he hadn't.

The moment had passed and his hand had fallen away, landing loose and open against the ground as she sat back, stood up, moved away as Sakakura slipped into the room - quiet as a ghost with shadows like bruises beneath his eyes - his mouth turned down in a grimace.

She'd greeted him with a smile and he'd responded with the briefest of nods as he moved past her into the room, coming to a stop near where he sat.

"If you're all patched up then it's time to go," he offered, gaze trained somewhere over his shoulder. "We still have a lot of ground to cover before dawn."

He was getting used to Sakakura avoiding his gaze, growing accustomed to the subtle rejection of every effort he'd made to bridge the distance between them in the long months since the disaster at Hope's Peak.

Some nights as they all lay beside one another - sleeping in shifts in burned out buildings or abandoned houses, hidden beneath whatever cover they could find - he found himself staring down at them and thinking how he might remove the burden of guilt from their shoulders and place it on his own.

But no solution ever presented itself and the gap between them seemed to grow ever wider with each passing day, the cliff crumbling away beneath his feet as he retreats back from the edge again and again even as Yukizome clings to them both, trying to bridge the gap with earnest effort and forced cheer, failing again and again.

And in those moments he thinks back to that darkened room at Hope's Peak - to the first time he'd pretended not to notice Sakakura wasn't being entirely honest with him - and everything aches.

Sakakura offered him his hand, still looking past him, still carrying the weight of all that had happened like some great burden he can not bear to share and he does he what he has always done. He forces himself to smile, to take Sakakura's hand and allow him to pull him to his feet.

The ache of the distance between them was a wound that never quite healed before it was broken open anew.

And he had wondered vaguely whether when he finally eradicates Despair, if that will fix whatever it was that had broken between them.

And now, standing in the middle of a brightly lit convenience store choking on his own inadaquecies, he has his answer.

Before that long horrible night, he wouldn't have hesitated to pick something at random, confident that Sakakura wouldn't mind or complain, but now….

Now choosing the right beer seemed crucial - absolutely critical - as if the entire weight of the future of his relationship with Sakakura somehow rested solely upon this one innocuous choice.

And he _knew_ it was silly.

That it wasn't true, that Sakakura wouldn't care at all.

He _knew_ that he just needed to pick _something_.

 _Anything_.

Or nothing.

He just… needed to make a decision.

Just close his eyes and grab whatever he set his hand to.

Just needed to do something.

Anything to break this pathetic standoff with his own indecision.

He was going to be late.

It had taken him far too long to get out the door and far too long to get the car started and far too long to arrive at the convenience store a few blocks and now he'd now spent far too long stalled in the aisles.

He was going to be late.

Was probably already late.

And that was worse, wasn't it?

Worse to show up late than empty-handed?

Wasn't it?

And yet….

And _yet_.

He couldn't seem to force himself to choose, to step beyond this moment, paralyzed by that inescapable fear that had clenched around his chest like a vise.

Just pick something.

Anything.

 _Anything._

He flexed trembling fingers, swallowing hard as he lifted one wrist to examine his watch.

Half past noon.

Late.

He was already late.

Somehow the five minutes he'd meant to spend in the store had turned into so much more.

People were looking very carefully around him, gazes darting to the bottles, the floor, the ceiling, anywhere at all to avoid looking directly at the strange man loitering in the middle of the aisle.

It was difficult to breathe.

He was going to ruin everything.

Again.

He needed to call him.

To explain.

To apologize.

His hands were shaking so badly that he fumbles and drops his phone pulling it from his pocket.

The clatter as it hits the tile floor is like a shotgun blast and he's on his knees scrambling for it before it even occurs to him to do otherwise.

Everything is too loud, too close, the tiles sway beneath him as he slaps his fingers down against them, trapping the phone before it can slide away, clutching it as he sits back against the shelves behind him.

Bottles clank menacingly at the impact and his mouth is so dry it's difficult to swallow.

People are stepping around him as if he isn't there, as if they don't see him at all and he isn't certain whether he should be grateful or angry or… anything at all.

He wasn't always this way.

With them it had been easy to be confident, to be self-assured... to be himself.

Being loved by them had made everything easier.

Even if he'd never seen that when it would have made a difference.

That person he used to be seems like a distant memory of another life, little more than a stranger, a reality he can no longer fathom.

Would she even recognize the person he is now?

A failure stymied by drink options and terrified by the possibility of losing more than he already had.

The ringing trill of the phone - once he finally managed to dial his number - seemed to go on for a very long time as he sat on the floor with his back against all those colorful labels and his head against his knees.

When the line finally clicks over into open space, Sakakura's voice is gruff and hesitant, "Hey."

Was that his fault too?

Was he just as responsible for Sakakura's doubts as he was for his own?

Probably.

"Hey," he murmured back, ice in his gut.

"Something come up?" He asked, cautiously, as if he were dreading what his answer might be.

There'd been no missed calls.

He'd been waiting for him.

Waiting patiently for him to make the next move, whatever it might be, ready to face whatever came.

The least he could do in the face of that was _try_.

"What kind of beer do you drink?" He blurts out, amazed that his voice sounds steady when he feels anything but.

" _Eh_?" The surprised burst of laughter brings the beginnings of a smile to his face, steals the tremble from his fingers, steadies the breath in his lungs. "What kind of question is _that_? Where are you?"

"Convenience store. It seemed rude to show up empty-handed, but I realized I have no idea what you drink. Or if you actually drink at all. Do you? Drink? Beer, that is. Obviously I'm aware that you drink water and the like."

What was he even doing?

He sounded like an _idiot_.

Fortunately Sakakura seemed willing to take the awkwardness in stride, laughter still coloring his words with affection, "Sure. Stopped taking the pain meds a while back so a couple beers won't kill me. I'm not particular - you know that - so you can just get whatever you like."

He did know that.

He did.

But he...

His fingers ached from how hard he was gripping the phone.

There was a moment of crackling silence over the line and then Sakakura was chuckling again, "Shit. You've never had a beer in your life, have you?"

"Is it that obvious?" He replied, relieved to have a reason, a ready excuse offered to him.

It was even true, even if it wasn't the reason for his current difficulties.

"Only to someone who knows you. Where'd you stop?"

"The place on the corner near your complex, I was…" he trails off, grasping for an excuse for his tardiness when his tongue refuses to form an apology.

"Want me to come meet you? I could help you pick something."

" _Please._ "

And he can only hope that word doesn't sound half as desperate as it feels.

"I'll be there in five. The fight doesn't really get started for another half an hour so we've got some time. You wanna order something in for lunch? Are you hungry?"

He's never hungry anymore.

Sometimes he thinks he is, but the feeling fades the moment food arrives.

When they're together he smiles and forces himself to choke it down, but it all tastes the same.

"We could get pizza. There's a decent place I order from sometimes."

"Okay," he manages as he pushes slowly, unsteadily, back to his feet.

It's easier to breathe with Sakakura's voice in his ear rattling off topping options as if he isn't going to tell him to get whatever he wants in the end anyway, so he lets him continue.

Listening to his voice makes it easier to pretend that everything is fine.

That _he's_ fine.

To straighten his jacket and dust off his pants as he waits for him to appear at the door.

Minutes pass and he can hear that he's breathing a little harder, probably out the door and on his way.

Walking quickly or maybe even jogging.

Seems dangerous.

He should probably let him go, but he can't quite bring himself to offer.

He's pretty sure only half the promised amount of time has passed when he hears the swish of the automatic doors over the line accompanied by a breathless, "There you are."

He pressed the button to end the call and slipped the phone back into his pocket as he looked up to meet Sakakura's gaze across the little store.

He was panting and pushing his hand back through hair shaken loose from the ponytail at the nape of his neck, his phone already tucked away out of sight.

His smile was warm, awkward, _relieved_ , as if he hadn't been certain he would find him there at all.

The pressure in his chest eased a bit even though the people around him were still very obviously not looking his way.

"Sorry," he called as he jogged towards him, either not noticing or not caring about the other customers. "I'd have been here sooner, but it takes me a little while to get out the door these days."

His face was flushed red and he knew even before he saw them that his sneakers would be untied, the laces tucked into the sides to make it less obvious.

He tries not to look.

It seems he's always trying not to look too closely.

To see the truths of their lives.

Of what he'd made of them.

He knew he should wave it off, that he should be the one to apologize for being late, being hopeless, but the moment to do so passes in an instant and he finds himself smiling instead, warm and welcoming and he wishes there was at least a hint of apology in it, but he knows there's not.

He is a terrible friend.

He wishes simply knowing that was enough to change it.

"Nothing to be sorry for," he managed as Sakakura fell in beside him, shoulder nudging against his own. He gestured vaguely to the rows of colorful packaging, "Preference?"

Even as he says it Sakakura is already reaching forward to snag a case from the shelf seemingly at random which he holds up for inspection. "This one look alright?"

He blinked once, twice, before finally replying with a hesitant, "Yes?"

Sakakura's grin is wide and he offers it to him to hold before snagging a second case with his now free hand, "Good, because you're gonna have to help me drink it."

"Alright," he agrees, nodding quickly and earning another shoulder bump before Sakakura meanders off towards the register.

Nothing has really changed.

His chest still feels tight and his throat still feels dry, but as he follows Sakakura out of the store with a paper sac filled with warm beer in his arms, he still somehow feels better than he's felt in years.


End file.
